Summary
Cason Lane needed a revamped digital calling card for his business communications consultancy. Main client concerns included site rendering speed, search engine optimization, security, and a new design that maintained the recognizable brand image.
A transition was made from a slow-loading and clunky Wordpress theme to a modern and clean custom site design that was developed with Hugo, a static site generator. Swapping the unnecessarily heavyweight Wordpress CMS along with its slow-loading database and plethora of plugins for a static site greatly helped reduce page load speeds from 20+ seconds to under 1 or 2 seconds. Without a database, the site no longer had to make dynamic requests to load and display content quickly. Removing the database also eliminated the main security vulnerability.
The site was redesigned from scratch by my friend, John Laue, based on client needs. Since the whole site was being built up from scratch, no bloat from unnecessary Wordpress themes or excess plugins was added to create the look and functionality desired. With SEO in mind from the beginning and with site speed being of utmost importance, best practices were applied in sync with content to bring the client’s web presence to the front page of Google.
Tools
- Hugo
- Foundation
- JavaScript
- Animate on Scroll
- Webpack